Day Three
CESNUR's
11th International Conference
Day Three
The third and final day of the conference opened with a session on "Case Studies of Contemporary Movements." Among the presenters was Robert Ellwood (University of Southern California), who developed the theme of Civilized Shamans: Sacred Biography and Founders of New Religious Movements.
Other noteworthy papers included:
Wouter Hanegraaff (University of Utrecht): "New Age and the Secularisation of Western Esotericism"
Daniel Boisvert (Concordia University, Montreal): "Ecology and Gay Spirituality: The Sexual Quest for the New Earth"
Claudio Bardella (London School of Economics): "Queer Spirituality" (with a focus on Christian- and pagan-oriented homosexual religious movements)
Leslaw Borowski (Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin): "A propos de Tabitha's Place: A View from Poland" (with an emphasis on the Siddha Yoga Dham of Swami Muktananda)
Yoshimi Umeda (Kawaguchi Gakuen Educational Foundation, Tokyo): "The Oomoto Foundation as a Mother of New Religious Movements in Japan"
Maria Raffaella Dalla Valle (Verona, Italy): "Is the Feldenkrais Method Becoming a Religion?"
Dadem Umar Habila Danfulani (University of Jos, Nigeria): "Exorcising Witchcraft: The Return of the Gods in New Religious Movements on the Jos Plateau and the Benue Regions of Nigeria"
Albertina Nugteren (Catholic University of Tilburg): "Tantric Influences in Western Esotericism"
Constance A. Jones (California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco): "Students in Ramtha's School of Enlightenment: A Prophile [sic] from Demographic Survey, Narrative and Interview"
Forrest Jackson and Steve Aydt (Dallas, Texas): "Religion as Fun and Fun as Religion: The Hot Tub Mystery Religion" (seems that what may have begun as a collegiate spoof has evolved into a loose-knit, occult-flavored religious movement with a special hobby of provoking anti-satanism sensationalist Bob Larson)
Additional sessions featured multiple papers devoted to topics such as G.I. Gurdjieff and Emanuel Swedenborg.
According to the conference brochure, "A selection of the papers will be published," although no firm date was given. Unfortunately, none of the sessions was recorded (unlike the 1996 CESNUR conference in Montreal).
Representatives and members of the following new and alternative religions (and possibly others) were present:
Unification Church
ISKCON
Theosophy
Watchtower Bible & Tract Society
The Family/Children of God
Brahma Kumaris
Mormonism
Scientology
L'Aumisme (not to be confused with Aum Shinri Kyo)
New Books Displayed or Advertised at the Conference
Helle Meldgaard and Johannes Aagaard, eds. New Religious Movements in Europe (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1997) ISBN 87 7288 548 3
"...as the end of the millennium approaches, many are turning to spirituality rooted in ancient practice, but modernized by secular experience. Today, nearly one-third of all religious bodies in Europe are based on methaphysical or esoteric tenets derived from Asian beliefs. In this volume, an international group of authors survey the religious and spiritual movements growing in popularity in Western Europe. They include theosophy, transcendental meditation, the Rosicrucians, Mormonism, the occult (including Satanism and Wicca), Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unification Church, Scientology, the Hare Krishna, and the Baha'i."
Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1996) ISBN 90 04 10695 2 -- "This fascinating work presents the first-ever comprehensive analysis of New Age Religion and its historical backgrounds, thus providing the reader with a means of orientation in the bewildering variety of the movement."
Elisabeth Arweck and Peter B. Clarke, New Religious Movements in Western Europe: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997) ISBN 0 313 24324 7 -- "The first compilation that brings together publications on new religious movements from across Western Europe, this useful work includes titles written in most European languages. The introduction provides an overview of NRMs since 1960 and places them in a global perspective. The literature, from the late 1970s to the present, covers areas of study such as sociology, psychology, history, theology and more, and should be of interest to scholars and students in many disciplines. The work is a companion piece to Diane Choquette's new Religious Movements in the United States and Canada: A Critical Assessment (Greenwood, 1985)."
Herman A.O. de Tollenaere, The Politics of Divine Wisdom: Theosophy and Labour, National, and Women's Movements in Indonesia and South Asia, 1875–1947 (Nijmegen: Nijmegen University Press) ISBN 90 373 0330 7
Rodney Perkins and Forrest Jackson, Cosmic Suicide: The Tragedy and Transcendence of Heaven's Gate (Dallas: Pentaradial Press, 1997) ISBN 0 9659512 1 9 -- "the definitive study of the Heaven's Gate cult. Consisting of neither tabloid trash nor New Age pabulum [sic], it details the group from its origin in the early 1970's to the sensational mass suicide in 1997.It also contains extensive appendices, which include leader Marshall Applewhite's autopsy report and numerous documents of otherworldly propaganda."
Next Year's CESNUR Conference
The 12th CESNUR International Conference ("Religious and Spiritual Minorities: Towards the 21st Century") is scheduled for September 10–12, 1998 in Torino (Turin), Italy. According to the conference flier,
Communications will be accepted in ethnology-anthropology, law, history, psychology, sociology, and theology, mainly on the following topics:
NRMs and other spiritual/philosophical minorities and their relations with the public authorities, the anti-cult movements, mainline religions and the press
The current status of the magic, esoteric and gnostic traditions
Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and other non-Christian minorities in the West.
For general information and guidelines for those wishing to submit papers, contact:
CESNUR
Via Juvarra 20
10122 Torino
ITALY
011+39+11 541-905 (fax)
cesnurto@tin.it